1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an exposure device, in particular, an exposure device for performing three-dimensional fine processing, and an exposure method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, development of a three-dimensional processing technology that freely forms a three-dimensional structural member has increasingly been performed. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-301945 (Patent Document 1) discloses a processing method using a stacking formation method. In this method, a thin layer of powder material containing a mixture of thermoplastic resin powder and a soluble filler powder is formed, and portions thereof are arbitrarily selectively sintered with laser. Then, forming of thin layers thereupon and sintering thereof are repeated, to successively stack sintered thin layers upon each other, as a result of which an entire shape is formed. In particular, in the Patent Document 1, after formation, the soluble filler powder is eluted with water, to form a structural member having high porosity.
As a method of forming a three-dimensional structural member by stacking thin layers upon each other, a method that uses liquid as a material as in an optical formation method is provided. In this method, a photo-curable resin is selectively irradiated with a beam, and cured layers are stacked upon each other. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. 2001-162687 (Patent Document 2) discloses a method in which, on the basis of two-dimensional slice data, a formation jig is moved along an X axis, an R axis, and a θ axis, and, at the same time, photo-curable resin is blown towards the jig, to perform laser irradiation.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 11-42713 (Patent Document 3) discloses a method of forming a three-dimensional structure by selectively irradiating a liquid surface of optical-formation resin with pulse light. For the laser light, light in which Nd:YVO4 (wavelength: 106 nm) is set to 355 nm by a high frequency converter is used, and the laser light is converted into a pulse with an ultrasonic transducer. The pulse light two-dimensionally scans the liquid surface using a galvanometer mirror, and selectively cures any location of the liquid surface.